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Effects of Climate Change on the Arctic and Out-Of-The-Box Approaches for Dealing with Them

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Effects of Climate Change on the Arctic and Out-Of-The-Box Approaches for Dealing with Them Effects of Climate Change on the Arctic and Out-of-the-Box Approaches for Dealing with Them Mark Parrino Introduction Human-induced climate change is becoming an increasing threat. The rate of warming in the 21st century is greater than in the second half of the 20th century.i ii iii The most pronounced effects are happening in the Arctic, where the surface air temperature is warming about twice as fast as the global average rate of warming.iv The warming is leading to an increase in global sea level as a result of melting ice sheets and glaciers and through thermal expansion. Warming is also linked to an observed weakening in the zonal component of the jet stream and an increase of severe weather in mid- and high latitudes.v vi Given the urgency of the situation, reducing emissions alone will not be enough to avoid devastating outcomes and so increasing attention is being paid to unusual, out-of-the-box approaches. These less-conventional approaches might include recreating an ecosystem from a previous glacial period to help prevent permafrost melt, adding particles to the atmosphere or bubbles to the oceans to reflect sunlight, or constructing buttresses to delay the collapse of glaciers. The Current Arctic In its 2019 Arctic Report Card, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) reported that the surface air temperature north of 60o N for October 2018-August 2019 was the second warmest since 1900. Furthermore, the air in the Arctic continued to warm at a rate double the global average rate of warming. Sea ice is younger, thinner, and covers less of the Arctic Ocean than in the past – the most recent 13 years represent the 13 lowest extents of summertime minimum sea ice in the satellite record that goes back almost 50 years. The amplified atmospheric warming also is driving more rapid rates of decline in snow cover, melting of the Greenland ice sheet, increased summer Arctic river discharge, and northward movement of Arctic vegetation zones.vii Other studies have reported similarly concerning findings. Analyses by the National Snow and Ice Data Center reveal that summer melting of Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet in 2019 was the second most extensive in the satellite record (due to the variability of the weather, the greatest amount of melting to date occurred in 2012).viii A significant contributor to 2019’s melting was warm air from the heat wave that also covered Europe in late July. During a five- day period, melting occurred over 90% of the ice sheet’s surface area, resulting in 55 billion metric tons of runoff, 40 billion metric tons more than the 1981 to 2100 average.ix A recent study published in Nature found that receding glaciers in the Canadian Arctic are exposing landscapes that have been continuously frozen for at least 40,000 years.x Another report reveals that Greenland’s ice loss is tracking the IPCC’s high-end climate warming scenario, meaning that its ice loss will contribute to about seven centimeters of warming which will affect around 40 million people in coastal areas.xi Arctic warming is expected to continue to increase, continuing to occur at roughly twice the global-average rate of warming. This Arctic Amplification (AA) of the temperature change is a main contributor to the rapid rates of change observed in the Arctic. AA occurs mainly because of an albedo effect. Snow is the most highly reflective type of surface cover, and when the snow melts, exposing the ice or ground surface, the reflectivity is reduced and a larger fraction of incoming solar radiation is absorbed, creating a positive feedback loop that leads to the additional absorption of solar leading to greater melting. Large amounts of carbon stored in the permafrost of the tundra contribute to another positive feedback. Research highlighted in the 2019 Arctic Report Card indicates that about twice as much organic carbon is stored in northern permafrost soils as is currently contained in the atmosphere.xii As warming occurs, there is faster thawing of permafrost; this exposes greater amounts of frozen material to the atmosphere, leading to release of greater amounts of CO2, and perhaps even CH4, into the atmosphere. The resulting increases in the atmospheric concentrations of these greenhouse gases leads in turn to increased rates of heating and thawing of the permafrost as part of a positive feedback process that will lead to further releases of CO2 and CH4. Impacts of Arctic Change The warming temperatures and changing climate of the Arctic have already begun to have noticeable effects, not only in the region, but also affecting the entire world. Mechanisms through which global effects occur include contributions to rising global sea level, making the mid-latitude jet stream wavier, increasing the frequency of severe winter weather in mid- latitudes, and more. Global sea level has risen 8-9 inches (21-24 centimeters) since 1880, with almost half of that amount occurring since 1993. xiii xiv A recent study estimates that roughly a third of the water contributing to sea level rise originated in the Arctic, with Greenland and Alaska being the two largest contributors in the Arctic region.xv xvi Relative to the year 2000, the 2018 National Climate Assessment cited a study projecting that global average sea level would be roughly 0.3-0.6 feet (9-18 cm) above its preindustrial level by 2030, 0.5-1.2 feet (15-38 cm) by 2050, and 1-4 feet (30-130 cm) by 2100. A report by Climate Central lists the top 25 cities in the US that are endangered by sea level rise, with New York City and Miami taking the top two places on the list.xvii Another effect of Arctic warming has been its effect on the polar jet stream that carries storms around the mid-latitudes. The jet stream is essentially a river of wind high in the atmosphere that, although it generally flows west to east, is a component of the atmospheric circulation that transports very large amounts of absorbed solar energy from the equator to the poles, where it is radiated back out to space. The jet stream arises as a result of a combination of the spherical shape of the Earth, the latitudinal gradients in incoming solar radiation and temperature that exist between Earth’s mid and high latitudes, and the spin of the Earth. Because the Arctic is warming much faster than lower latitudes, the reduction in the temperature gradient is allowing greater meandering of the jet stream.xviii As a result of the increased waviness of and the slower west to east shifting of the waves in the jet stream, the frequency and intensity of severe mid-latitude winter weather episodes are increasing.xix Out-of-the-box Approaches Given the increasing disruptions caused by ongoing climate change, in addition to reducing emissions and other more conventional methods of mitigation, which are absolutely critical (and not discussed further in this note), increasing attention is being paid to out-of-the box approaches that might also be needed to moderate the increasing warming. As just a couple of examples, the following approaches have been suggested as ways to moderate specific arctic impacts such as ice melt and amplified surface warming. If successfully implemented, these approaches would have the potential to moderate the impacts of climate change in the Arctic and help slow global change as well. Glacial Geoengineering: In March 2018, John Moore, head of China’s geoengineering research program and chief scientist at Beijing Normal University’s College of Global Change and Earth System Science, published an article in Nature describing three potential geoengineering techniques that might be implemented locally to slow glacier melt and global sea level rise.xx I. Sea walls: To block warm water that is flowing from the Atlantic through the Labrador Sea and then accelerating sub-surface melting of the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland, construction of a 100-meter-high wall across the fjord in front of the glacier by dredging gravel and sand from Greenland’s continental shelf has been suggested. The scale of the wall would be comparable to other large civil-engineering projects, requiring movement of about a tenth of the material that was excavated to construct the Suez Canal. Although the project would create jobs, albeit in a remote area of Greenland, outside experts would have to be brought in to supplement local workers and it would need to be recognized that local ecosystems would be affected. II. Underwater buttresses: When ice sheets reach the sea, the ice tends to spread out to form an ice shelf. Shelves have been thinning as a result of rising ocean temperatures, leading to more frequent breaking off of ice bergs and acceleration of loss of glacial ice mass. A number of large buttresses could conceivably be built to support the ice shelves and prevent them from crumbling. Although this approach could, in theory, help, more testing, modeling, and feasibility trials would be needed before action could be contemplated, especially given the scale of effort that would be required. III. Dry subglacial streams: Ice is constantly moving and flowing. The friction between the moving ice and the glacier bed creates heat, which stimulates more melting, basically better lubricating the ice stream movement. This lubricating water at the ice- ground interface could either be pumped directly to the ocean or frozen in place using cooled brines beneath the sediment at the glacier’s base. Block Arctic Passages: Stanford lecturer Dr. Leslie Field has proposed another approach to slowing Arctic warming.
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